I do not own Inuyasha. All rights go where due.

Chapter One

"He's... dead. He's gone. He's really, really gone! Kagome, you did it!" an ecstatic voice cried out over the battered and bloody battlefield. Kagome looked up from where she kneeled on the ground, holding a completed Shikon no Tama in her hand, glowing with a soft pink light. She saw her friends hurrying over to her, all smiling and cheering happily. Not a single one had been severely injured, and for that she was relieved.

The battle against Naraku had been long and hard, testing everyone to their limits. It was surprising that her friends only escaped with scratches and minor injuries. The only death had been Kikyo, and she had been long since dead when she entered the battle. She had been prepared to die, and Inuyasha had also been prepared for his former love's departure from the world. He no longer loved her, so the pain was minimized. While Naraku had been gloating to Inuyasha, who was faking shock and grief to distract the evil hanyou, about Kikyo's death, Kagome had sneaked up behind him and shot the most powerful purifying arrow she could create, draining her of most of her powers as it hit the mark and purified Naraku to dust... but not before he noticed her and did his damage.

Kagome looked around at her friends with a weak smile, trying to be strong and not let them know of the extent of her injuries. What looked like mere bruising to her ribs was actually a fatal blow. She could feel it. Several ribs had punctured both of her lungs. It was already hard to breathe as blood flowed into her lungs, but he managed to persuade her friends that she was fine. They tried to get her to walk to the village with them, but she decline, saying that she needed to wish on the jewel and get rid of it forever. She told them she needed to concentrate, so they left her alone to head to the village. Kagome held up her strong outer appearance until her friends were well out of sight and, for Inuyasha, out of sensing range. Then she struggled to asses the damage to her body, grimly noting that there was nothing anyone in this era could do to help her. Even in her era, the chance of her surviving this was small... and she couldn't get to her era anyways. The battle had taken place in the field where the well was, ultimately destroying the sacred well and her way home. The well could be rebuilt... but by the time it was fixed she would be gone. In fact, she had very little time left as it was.

The young miko took a small shaky breath; it was all she could manage to do that much. She knew she was going to die, and very soon. She could see the pallbearers to the afterlife gathering around her already. She knew she had to hurry and make her wish, however, so that the cursed jewel would disappear forever and no longer ruin the lives of everyone it came into contact with. So Kagome held the jewel up in front of her face and made the only wish that would permanently rid the world of the jewel. She wished for the four souls trapped within the jewel and giving it power would be able to rest in peace, for Midoriko's fight to be over at long last and for her spirit to be at ease.

With her wish made, the jewel disappeared from the world forever, never to be seen again. Kagome sighed softly, wincing in pain as she did so. The thought of using the jewel on herself never once crossed her mind, for she knew the jewel would only continue to reappear in the world should she make such a selfish wish. No, is she could die to save the fate of the world, she would do so gladly. It was with that thought that she took a slow shallow breath, closed her eyes, exhaled... and then breathed no more.

-BREAK-

Hello to all my beloved readers! This is my return to fanfic, and I decided to give you a glimpse at the newest story I have been working on! Actually, I wanted to put up a Sesshy/Kag story but I'm still trying to sort that one out in my mind, and this one has conveniently been floating around in my head, almost fully developed, the last several days.

Anyways, all my stories will be updated sometime very soon, but you must understand that I am now in college and have several papers to write so it may be a while before the next updates after this.

I'm making this clear now, this is NOT a oneshot, even though it could very well be one. This story WILL have several chapters by the time it is complete. Also, please do not harp on me about how short it is! I know it is short, okay?! But I wanted to leave you with a cliffie ;D

Also, many of you know that I just recently had a revival and am trying to make a change. I will allow myself to write a lemon for this story. However, it will only have ONE lemon and only implications afterwards. You are warned so do NOT yell at me for not having smut in this story. This story is only rated M because of this one lemon, which I am sure will be mild.

Thank you for your support. I must say I truly love my fans but, after my last update, I got about seventy million email alerts on my phone within a 24 hour period about people following and favorite my work. While I am truly flattered about that, I must say I am slightly disturbed at how many I got at midnight. Is this all you do at night? Read fanfic? No sleep? I like sleep, don't you? And my phone, it makes this high-pitched chirping sound when I get an email...

Really, I do love all my readers. Thank you so much for liking my work :) You make it worthwhile. I appreciate the constructive criticism, too. And to all the NEW readers, please TAKE NOTE ON THIS. I do not appreciate foul language, hateful comments, or disrespect against my religion, as well as any other religion. IF you have a serious issue with anything I write, please, be polite and courteous with your reviews, or just PM me. I won't mind if you PM me with your hateful comments, so long as it is not in the reviews for everyone to see. Thank you.

I am so glad to be back. Sorry for the long author's note. I will likely update this story sometime very soon, so fear not! ;D

-Aozora12